Questions as to whether the problems are cultural or innate remind me of another anecdote. (Yes, I'm really spilling the tea at the moment.)
When I was about thirty I went on a short laddish holiday. Me and the other lads I was with were on a night out there. We walked past a strip club and the bouncers and scantily clad girls on the door started beckoning us in. My friends didn't need much of an invitation, but, as you can tell from my previous posts, that sort of thing isn't really my scene. So they went in and I went off on my own for a few hours, to observe the grim nightlife of the seaside town we were visiting.
Now it would be unfair to put strippers in the exact same category as prostitutes. After all, it is just nudity. If it was some type of arty nudity and people weren't throwing money at the women I'd probably be all for it. I'm not a total puritan. Still, strip clubs - even if that's strictly all that's going on - are a bar too low for me. And it's not so much a sense that the women are being exploited. I honestly couldn't care less about some twenty-five year old stripper - and I'm not just saying this to give a sense of edgy disregard ..well, I am, a bit, but I genuinely don't care so much. It certainly doesn't concern me the way the other things we've mentioned do. In fact, it's funny, I can actually remember earlier that same day seeing a stripper leave a different strip club in the area, and cross the street to enter a chip shop, when I was getting chips, lol. It was like getting an unglamorous glimpse behind the magician's curtain. I remember the hardened look on her face. Like she'd been working on an oil rig. She certainly didn't look like a victim ..and I got the sense she'd have aggressively told me to "F@ck Off" if I'd have even dared to condescend to her by suggesting that.
So it wasn't so much pious concern for the women, more my own personal pride. Having to pay to see a pair of tits in some grubby club. Pathetically handing some woman a £20 note as you sit there like a stupid dog that's been allowed to have a dog treat. I can't do that. It's beneath me. I'm sorry if you don't like that - that it makes me better than you - but it's true, that's just the way it is. You'd literally have to put a gun to my head. The burly bouncer couldn't get me through the door at the time.
Anyway, my mates went in, I didn't, and I finally met up with them at the hotel hours later. They'd wasted a lot of money. And one of them came back convinced the particular stripper he was giving money to genuinely "liked him." Nevertheless, it was all just standard, clichéd, lads on a night out type behaviour. Nothing more than that. What was more interesting to me was the response I got at work the next week..
The Girls
When I went back to work the women I worked with asked me about the excursion. I mentioned my friends losing a fortune at the strip club, thinking it was pitiful, but funny.
The girls were very disappointed in me.
They all thought it was terrible that I didn't go in myself. One even said she'd "feel ashamed" if her husband refused to enter a strip club on a lads' night out.
Now yes, don't get me wrong, I get it. On some primal level I'm the weak (and somewhat miserable one) for not bounding towards the naked women, full of testosterone. I was thirty odd year old at this point, so I understood only too well the common reality that women prefer, "fun, dangerous bad boys," and that they don't like delicate simps (though I wouldn't have used that particular word back then). So the response wasn't completely unexpected.
It was, however, worse than I expected. I didn't realise things were quite that bad. I didn't think I'd get no respect at all for having the sense and willpower to walk past a den of iniquity. The sheer bluntness. Normally women at least feign some dislike for such things. Though, to be fair, these were very honest, forthright women, and I knew them well enough to get a straight opinion.
Anyhow, I contested their viewpoint. I basically said something along the lines of, "I don't care if I look 'gay,' I'm not going to a strip club." Like a delicate little moral puritan.
When I look back now, alas, I realise this was a big mistake. Sure, I stood my ground - I don't regret that - but I accepted the weak framing of the situation. I should've been more forthright in my own opinion.
I made the mistake of trying to appeal to the female ballot box.
I now understand, after much thought, that this modern world, that I was born into, forced me into a false dichotomy. Where there can only be two types of men.
Conscientious, but weak men
And strong, but bad (or mindless) men
So if you're an intelligent, well-raised man in this world you're taught to be tolerant, and to completely suppress your male characteristics. Being a good man means never taking the lead, and always following the consensus. Tolerance is everything. You must always ask, you must never declare. If a bully hits you, you should tell the teacher, you must never hit back. If a crime is committed, you must tell the government. They will deal with it ..and you must never look back in anger. The minute you express a single word in anger, however heinous the crime, you cease to be good and tolerant.
The net effect of all this social conditioning is that it means the bad, criminal, or simply unthinking man, gets to personify and embody the male characteristics in society. Strength, virility, passion, natural leadership - they now all belong to the "bad boy." Even the good, conscientious women can't help but instinctively notice and feel this. There are no good, strong men, so who else are they going to be attracted to?
In previous eras good men were and could be strong. The knight in shing armour. The hero slaying the dragon. Even just the simple head of the household or village, who called the shots and set the tone. Whereas today men are taught it's wrong to be a knight. With fathers - the heads of households - portrayed in every TV show and advert as idiotic, but loving dotes. Passively accepting their teenager daughter's latest trend, as the real decisions are deferred to the switched-on, multi-tasking mother.
The message is clear: a good man must never impose himself on the world.
So the mindless man can indulge his masculine energy to bound into a strip club and waste his money. But my anger and disgust that a strip club is there in the first place must be suppressed. And if I want to raise any objection or concern I must make a gentle, simpering appeal to the nearest women or local politician. As I did back then.
(I realise I'm self-declaring myself as the good man here, lol, but you know what I mean. Allow me yet more arrogance.)
It's taken three articles to get here, but I feel we've finally hit the crux.
This is why when a man suggests using force (even just state force) to deal with a violent rapist it's viewed as crime of the century. A much bigger crime than the rape itself. As it represents the end of tolerance and the complete upending of the current social order. It's a revolutionary act.
The reason so many people in positions of authority failed to protect the victims of grooming gangs was not that they were all evil or actively complicit. It was because they were weak. Their natural instincts had been dulled by a world that said goodness meant tolerance. In every instance where they should've felt anger and showed some leadership they suppressed that urge and accepted the situation. Instead offering help, guidance and contraception. Gently, tiptoeing around, trying to be 'good'. As bad men took the lead.
Some people on the right remain within the current false framing. The Andrew Tate types will just say, "You should go to the strip club." It's biological reality. You can either be a winner or a loser. So be the apex predator. Be the T-Rex.
I think once this framing breaks though, which it seems to be doing, the dragon slayer may come back. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
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